A Hero's Death
by ScarletNox140
Summary: The "Fallen Fifty" of the Battle of Hogwarts. Fred, Lupin, Tonks, Colin, Lavender, and all the others. These are some of the true heroes who chose to fight Voldemort and sacrifice themselves rather than give up the life on one boy, which could have saved them all. What happened to them? This is my take on writing their untold stories. T for Character Death. Warning: Contains Feels!
1. Lupin

"Tonks!" I cry out, desperately, between spells. "Nymphadora!" I am so desperate that I had actually used her full name. If we both survive this, she would never let me forget it.

"I'm right here," and suddenly we're standing back to back, battling the Death Eaters that are slowly closing in around us.

We dodge the flashes of green light that come hurtling towards us continuously at the speed of light, and fire back every time, listening for the grunt or thud that shows that we hit our marks. That's the problem with being on the good side. They have no qualms about using the killing curse, the one curse that guarantees death.

And suddenly they're all gone, and during the brief respite we have, I impulsively turn towards her and kiss her. And then I let her go.

It has been days since this battle started; it has been years. And still I keep going on, keep fighting for the first place I truly belonged after my… accident. Fighting for all the young lives who had found their place here. Hogwarts is more than a school. It is a home, it is a place of love, and happiness, and things that we treasure. And if the home of these feelings is destroyed, then what's left to keep them themselves from drifting away? I don't know, I don't want to find out.

And so I go on.

I catch glimpses of people I know every once in a while. The bright and abnormally colored flashes of hair for my love, the bright flash of James' – no, Harry's glasses. How is it that of the four people that we were, the Marauders, the three people, brothers, I held the dearest, I am the only one left? It is not right.

And with this comes the realization – I should not live, while they don't survive. And I know that my time has come. I let out a strong battle cry as I raise my wand for what I know will be the last time, and plunge into the fray. I hear the calls in response to mine as people are revitalized and charge with a renewed energy.

After mowing down a dozen Death Eaters with little resistance, I begin to send curses at Antonin Dolohov.

He laughs as he effortlessly deflects my feeble magic, and I know that he is toying with me, that he could easily finish me off. But I have to try.

I can't give in without a fight.

I can't do that to the people of this school. Or the people of the world.

I can't do that to the memory of Sirius and James.

I try my best to weaken him, knowing any attempts to harm him would be futile. And, when he hits me with a "Petrificus Totalus!" I know that this is the end.

I want to close my eyes, to do anything to look away from the person who widowed my dearest Dora, and made my baby Teddy fatherless. But I can't; even if I could I wouldn't.

Because I am so strong.

So in my last moments I stare up at the psychotically grinning face of Antonin Dolohov. I see without seeing, I hear without hearing. His wand goes up right above my chest, and his lips move to form the words that will end my life.

All I feel: relief. The kind that you feel going to bed after a particularly long day.

And I. Can't. Think.

Except one thought that echoes in my head, the last thing binding me o this cruel, mortal world of pain and loss and suffering.

I'm sorry, Teddy.

A flash of green light, and then it's over.

I'm sorry.


	2. Fred

**Here's the second chapter! Hope you like it :) Reviews are welcome! Review or PM me with suggestions, feedback, comments, and what character you'd like to see next! Remember that this story is limited to the characters that die in the Battle of Hogwarts, and I'd prefer to do the non-Death Eaters.**

I reach up to swipe away some of the blood that's pooling on my lip, as I shake back my shoulder-length ginger hair and plunge back into the fray. I'm worried, I guess, about the rest of my family out here fighting off the Death Eaters… but at the same time, I feel a strange sense of – of bliss. My mind empty, it's just me, myself and the wand in my hand.

Dodging under flashes of light and shooting my own back to where they came from, everything just becomes a whirlwind of color and adrenaline until there're just a few Death Eaters left, facing off with myself and… my grin slightly fades as my concentration wavers, staring at Perce battling a masked Death Eater. _Percy_?!

I am brought back to my senses only as a bright green flash of light streaks narrowly past my arm, missing only by a hair, and I whirl back around the face the invaders. As I send a continuous stream of curses at the masked, hooded figures before me, I am still acutely aware of my… ex-brother across the room from me, as we are slowly backing up closer together into the next room. I take down one of the Death Eaters with a Reducto to the wall behind him, then swivel around and hit another with a clean, well-aimed curse. Then there's only one Death Eater left facing me.

I duck as jets of light begin to fly wildly from behind me, but as I whirl around to fend them off, I see Harry and Hermione, with my youngest brother in tow. I grin and then turn back to defeat the Death Eater. With the three of them joining us, the man facing Perce backed away quickly, his hood falling off to reveal…

"Hello, Minister!" roars Percy, firing a neat jinx straight at Thicknesse, causing him to drop his wand and claw at the front of his robes in apparent horrible discomfort. "Did I mention I'm resigning?"

"You're joking Perce!" I call back, in disbelief, as my foe falls to three separate Stunning Spells. I flash a grin at the three before turning to Perce with glee and incredulity during our respite. Thicknesse lies on the ground, tiny spikes erupting out of his body seemingly turning him into some kind of giant sea urchin.

"You actually _are _joking, Perce… I don't think I've heard you joke since you were –"

And the air seems to explode, as we are all grouped together: Harry Ron, Hermione, Percy, the Death Eaters at our feet, and myself… The world tears apart and I'm holding on, I'm holding on…

I can't hold on.

I feel myself hit something, or maybe something hits me, hard.\

So I don't hold on.


	3. Snape

**Here's the new chapter! As always, please follow/favorite and review with any feedback, suggestions, character requests, anything! Enjoy! :) Happy Mother's Day!**

When I was summoned to the Shrieking Shack by the Dark Lord, I knew that it was over. Have I been discovered? My betrayal unearthed, and now he wishes to punish me? I shiver slightly but cover it up by tossing my head back as I take down yet another Death Eater with a shot from behind, which I know that none would have seen. Flipping my robes, forever the Half-Blood Prince, I stalk from the Great Hall.

I am terrified. It is an emotion… that I am unfamiliar with. Grief? Yes, too much of that in my short, miserable existence, but fear? It is an entirely new feeling. Well… except with Lily.

_My dear Lily… I am so, so sorry._

Memories flash through my mind. When I first saw her. The first time I met her. The day we became friends. Going to Hogwarts, watching her join Gryffindor with that James Potter. And then… that's where things started to go downhill. I befriended the wrong people. I got into the Dark Arts. And… I called her a Mudblood.

I shake myself out of my stupor and breathe deeply before stunning the Whomping Willow and entering the secret passage that will take me to the Shrieking Shack. I will need all my wits about me for this encounter.

I stand before the Dark Lord as he sits at a table, his long, white fingers toying with his wand. _The Elder Wand_, I quickly realize. We stand in silence until I clear my throat to say, "My Lord, their resistance is crumbling…"

"—and it is doing so without your help," says the Dark Lord, in his high, clear voice. "Skilled wizard though you are, Severus, I do not think you will make much difference now. We are almost there… almost."

"Let me find the boy," I say, almost desperately, though I do not allow any hint of emotion to enter my voice. "Let me bring you Potter. I know I can find him, my Lord." In fact, this is actually true. I hear a scuffle behind me and I know instinctively who it is that's hiding there. "Please."

I stride past the gap, hoping that the Dark Lord won't notice the pair of haunting, piercing green eyes that are so much like hers.

As I cross, I see Nagini, swirling and coiling like a serpent underwater, safe in her enchanted, starry sphere, which floats unsupported in mid-air. The Dark Lord stands up and all thoughts of Nagini immediately vanish.

"I have a problem, Severus," he says softly. My blood turns cold.

"My Lord?" I ask, the slightest waver detectable in my voice.

The Dark Lord raises the Elder Wand, holding it as delicately and precisely as a conductor's baton.

"Why doesn't it work for me, Severus?"

Confused, I look to him blankly. "My – my Lord? I do not understand. You – you have performed extraordinary magic with that wand."

The knot in my chest begins to ease up. Perhaps my betrayal has not been discovered after all! I am careful to keep my face impassive but slightly bemused.

"No," he says. "I have performed my usual magic. I am extraordinary, but this wand… no. It has not revealed the wonders it has promised. I feel no difference between this wand and the one I procured from Ollivander's all those years ago." His tone is musing, calm… but I can feel the rage beginning to swirl deep inside of him. I want to shrink away, but instead I stand tall and proud, yet humble before the Dark Lord as a good Death Eater should be.

"No difference," he says again, and starts to move slowly around the room. "I have thought long and hard, Severus… do you know why I have called you back from the battle?" His tone remains measured, though I can sense the rising anger beneath it as he fights to block out his emotions.

"No, my Lord," I say carefully, "but I beg you will let me return. Let me find Potter," I say, keeping my eyes fixated on Nagini in her floating sphere.

"You sound like Lucius," he says dismissively. "Neither of you understands Potter as I do. He does not need finding. Potter will come to me. I know his weakness, you see, his one great flaw. He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come."

"But my Lord, he might be killed accidentally by one other than yourself—"

"My instructions to my Death Eaters have been perfectly clear," he interjects smoothly. "Capture Potter. Kill his friends – the more, the better – but do not kill him."

Then he turns to face me. "But it is of you that I wished to speak, Severus, not Harry Potter," he says, softly. And with the Dark Lord, soft is dangerous. "You have been very valuable to me. Very valuable." This is getting worse by the minute.

"My Lord knows I seek only to serve him. But –" I add quickly, "let me go and find the boy, my Lord. Let me bring him to you. I know I can –"

"I have told you, no!" he snaps, impatiently. His cloak swishes across the floor like a snake. "My concert at the moment, Severus, is what will happen when I finally meet the boy!"

I am confused. Of course, he means to kill the boy, but why… "My Lord," I start slowly, "there can be o question, surely –"

"– but there _is _a question, Severus. There is." His voice quiets again, and I can see the Dark Lord struggling to regain control over himself. He stops, and turns back towards me. He slides the Elder Wand through his fingers and stares at me, unblinking. Like a snake.

"Why did both the wands I have used fail when directed at Harry Potter?"

How am I expected to respond? I clear my throat. "I – I cannot answer that, my Lord."

"Can't you? My wand of yew did everything of which I asked it, Severus, except to kill Harry Potter. Twice it failed. Ollivander told me under torture of the twin cores, told me to take another's wand. I did so, but Lucius' wand shattered upon meeting Potter's." I feel his rage building, about to explode.

"I – I have no explanation, my Lord," I say, my eyes still on Nagini.

"I sought a third wand, Severus. The Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny, the Deathstick. I took it from its previous master." Does this mean… "I took it from the grave of Albus Dumbledore."

And now I look at Voldemort, my head snapping up with fury, though I know my face remains like a death mask. Marble white and oh so still.

Because I know now what's coming.

"My Lord – let me go to the boy –"

"All this long night, when I am on the brink of victory, I have sat here," he says, his voice barely more than a whisper, "wondering, wondering… why the Elder Wand refuses to be what it ought to be, refuses to perform as legend says it must perform for its rightful owner…" I feel my resignation, for here comes the decision of my fate, "and I think I have the answer."

I do not trust myself to reply.

"Perhaps you already know it? You are a clever man, after all, Severus. You have been a good and faithful servant, and I regret what must happen." I still attempt to protest, feebly, my voice barely a murmur.

"My Lord –"

"The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Severus," he cuts me off again, "because I am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus," his voice drops again, "the Elder Wand cannot be truly mine." There it is.

"My Lord!" I protest feebly, my wand raising of its own accord, out of pure instinct, as I know that it will not protect me now.

This is the end.

_I am so, so sorry._

"It cannot be any other way," the Dark Lord says. "I must master the wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last."

He swipes the wand through the air, but it does nothing to me. Confused, for a second I actually believe that I will be spared. Until I see it.

The snake's cage is rolling through the air towards me, and before I even have time to yell, the bubble encases me head to shoulder, and Voldemort hisses to the snake. I don't know what he says, but the meaning is evident.

As fangs enter my neck, I feel… pain, beyond anything I have ever felt before. There is a terrible, heart-wrenching scream in the distance, or maybe it's nearby, echoing within the narrow confines of Nagini's bubble, and dimly I realize that it's tearing itself from my throat. My eyes widen as I fail to push the cage off of myself, and I crash to the floor. My vision blurs, but I can just make out the shape of the Dark Lord looming over me.

"I regret it," he says coldly, and turns away, devoid of remorse or sadness.

I fall sideways to the floor as he leaves the cabin pulling the snake off of me. I am prepared to close my eyes and let go, to leaves this miserable existence behind, to… to see Lily again.

_Lily, I tried._

But then I see him.

Those haunting emerald eyes stare down at me, and before I know what I'm doing, I grab the front of his robes and pull him close. The actions bring on another, worse bout of pain. I open my mouth to try and speak, but a rasping, gurgling sound emerges from my mouth.

"Take… it… Take… it…" I try again, and this time I know he hears me.

Granger conjures a small flask and presses it into Harry's hands. I let the memories go.

I know it's time to let go… so I let go.

One last effort.

"Look… at… me…"

The green eyes find black.

The green slowly fades away, to nothing but a ghost.

_I'm sorry._


End file.
